Author bio: William Wood is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. He teaches and researches in areas of restorative justice, youth justice, corrections, and crime and media. He holds a PhD (Sociology) from Boston College, and an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary.
I will admit I am struggling with recent social and political winds of change in Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. The decision to return the age of criminal responsibility to 10 in the Northern Territory and the forthcoming “adult crime, adult time” legislation in Queensland are only two of numerous regressive policies nationally and globally that are symptomatic of growing populist responses to crime. These have often come in hand with larger attacks on basic human rights for racial, ethnic, and Indigenous peoples; for women; and for LGBTQ+ people that are being targeted and scapegoated in times of heightened uncertainty and political divisiveness.
I know I am not the only one struggling. I have frequent conversations with colleagues, friends, and family about the deepening crises in justice, equality, and human rights in many countries. I often hear from others a sense of anxiety or even trepidation about the immediate future, a feeling there is no clear light at the end of the tunnel as such policies coalesce into more regressive and even spiteful forms of governance.
In reflecting on my own growing sense of melancholy, I have found two things in particular to be useful in helping me maintain some sense of wellbeing and stay connected to others.
The Usefulness of the Sociological Imagination
The first thing is the reminder to myself that we have been here before. Many of these struggles are decades if not centuries long. And while history may help with perspective, I am speaking more about what CW Mills called “the sociological imagination.” For Mills, history matters, but taken alone it can also often be obscure or even overwhelm people. For these reasons, Mills argued we need to develop a sense and understanding of how our own biographies intersect with history – how we are agents, and active subjects within history. At the core of such imagination, Mills argued:
Is the idea that the individual can understand her own experience and gauge her own fate only by locating herself within her period, that she can know her own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent one.
We are experiencing some of these terrible lessons now – lessons on the fragility of democracy, how easy it is for elites to strip away hard-won gains in civil and human rights, and how willing people are to see fellow humans as deserving of marginalization, oppression, and suffering.
When I reflect on my own sociological imagination, I am also reminded of the magnificence of social movements of the past and present that have been effective in bending what Martin Luther King Jr called the long arc of the moral universe towards justice. Those that fought before us did not do so in vain, even while they too suffered significant setbacks and, in some cases, horrific social responses to their insistence on equality, enfranchisement, dignity, and liberty. I am reminded of how these social movements have been intrinsic in promoting change in many areas of social life, even while other struggles remain largely in front of us.
The Usefulness of Restorative Perspectives
This brings me to my second point, more specifically about restorative justice. I recently agreed to an interview about restorative justice on a conservative radio talk show in Brisbane. I was prepared for the worst, but on the contrary, the radio host was quite interested in several aspects of restorative justice – in particular a point of agreement that the justice system does little for victims of crime. Through this point of agreement, I explained why so many studies have found that victims prefer restorative justice over conventional court practices. He asked why, and I explained that while hardly perfect, it was the only approach that allowed victims to ask questions directly to those that have harmed them, and to allow people to come together in dialogue about how these harms should best be addressed.
The radio host picked up on several issues often important to conservatives – accountability in particular, but also community safety. Of course these are important to most people, but the questions were framed in a (very civil) way that suggested such needs were not being met by the current youth justice system in Queensland, including the use of restorative justice. I explained that restorative approaches did not view accountability as a “hard” or “soft” option, but rather a more “direct” form of accountability – i.e. we should be accountable first to those we have harmed. He seemed to agree with this and asked for examples of how this happens and what it looks like in practice.
There was far more to this conversation. My larger point is that we were able to come to several places of agreement about what doesn’t work in the current youth justice system, and why restorative justice is better poised to address some of these issues than conventional Children’s Court practices and sanctions. This was a bit ironic for me, as much of my research is critical of aspects of restorative justice – it has become too embedded in the goals and priorities of criminal justice systems, it does not work as well for socially marginalised peoples and communities, and so on. In the context of this interview, however, I found myself defending restorative justice in principle, for two reasons that I have consistently returned to in over two decades of studying and observing it in practice.
Humanising Discourses
Primarily, restorative justice meetings are grounded in respectful dialogue. This does not always happen, but in the many meetings I have observed it is rare for people to become outright disrespectful. People do get angry. People do become passive aggressive. People do withdraw and sometimes shut down. Dialogue-driven processes are often exceedingly difficult and emotionally wrought affairs, contrary to the rosy pictures painted by some advocates. But – importantly – people in my experience (and in the research) rarely dehumanise each other. On the contrary, there is some element of “humanness” that usually comes out of these meetings.
This is a difficult thing to measure. Some researchers call this “restorativeness,” in terms of how much each party or participant can move towards an understanding of the other’s perspectives and experiences. But this does not adequately capture how – even if people don’t fully “come together” – they are still more inclined to listen and not dehumanise each other when sitting face to face. Other researchers have measured this in terms of “procedural justice,” but research here has mostly measured perceptions of fairness or respect within the process, not how people interact with each other in such dialogue.
Thus, my defence of restorative justice in this interview helped me clarify to myself why, as a scholar, I am often critical of its problems, but why as a human I am so supportive of its potential benefits. I don’t know how to measure the “humanising” aspects of restorative processes quite yet. This has not been adequately done, especially where so much research (often driven by funding or government imperatives) is about outcomes – reoffending, victim satisfaction, and so on. I am also fully aware of (and often write about) its limitations. But two decades of studying and researching restorative justice also tells me that it does have the capacity to humanise people towards each other in ways contrary to conventional justice practices that tend to entrench them in opposition towards one another.
Humanising Politics
This has obvious applications beyond criminal justice, including the use of restorative practices in education and many other social settings. More generally, however, such humanising discourse and dialogue is also the foundation of pluralism in diverse societies. Here I am reminded of Michelle Obama’s famous quip – “When they go low, we go high.”
When I first heard this, I will admit to thinking of it as a bit of a platitude, and perhaps somewhat naïve given how low things had already gotten. Over time, however, I realised how much more she meant than just taking the moral high ground as a response to being wronged. Those that believe in pluralism – including the belief that society is made better by a diversity people and beliefs – have to “go high” if they want to advocate for a more fully inclusive and equitable society. This is why politics that involve large tents so often struggle against forms of populism that are inherently exclusive “small tents.” Large tents require things like coalitions, concessions, and compromises. Small tents depend and thrive on exclusivity and views of others as dangerous, undeserving, and in some cases less than human.
In this regard, the principles of restorative justice model many of the principles of more effective pluralistic societies. Both depend on accountability and transparency – not only in cases of wrongdoing, but as part of a process where decision-making in polity is accountable and transparent to citizens (I use this term in the general sense, not the legal sense). Both depend on processes undergirded by basic assumptions and agreement on a humanising respect for others, even in cases where people have been harmed. Both depend on a sense of being heard, and having one’s voice incorporated into larger outcomes or decisions that may meet some but not all of their needs and interests.
Clearly, these things are never fully achieved, even in more inclusive societies. And at the risk of this sounding like a TED Talk, I am not suggesting everything just turns out ok in the end. I don’t know the answer to this, and I also know that social movements and social change do not work under any proscribed guidelines. This is an enduring quagmire for scholars in this area, where some movements have been more effective by challenging and changing social attitudes, and others relying on more disruptive or even forceful responses.
On the other hand, the success of such movements has also depended in large part on humanising discourses that lead to increased accountability and transparency, further respect for others (interpersonally but also in standards of basic human rights), and improved involvement in decision-making for all people and groups impacted by polity and governance.
I am not suggesting restorative justice can solve all the world’s problems. My defence of it is more nuanced than this, but its also where I do find hope on my more melancholy days. At its core, restorative justice not a theory of offending, or victimisation, or even criminal justice per se. Rather, at least in my view, restorative justice is more a roadmap on how to better address conflict and problems in diverse societies. More specifically, it is a justice mechanism that is aligned with more humanising forms of polity and governance that depend on accountability and transparency, basic levels of respect and human rights, and increased inclusiveness and participation from all social members.
As I get older, wiser of my own ignorance and limitations, and more knowledgeable about social change, I realise “going high” is really the only option for bending the long arc of the moral universe. Here, “going high” does not mean being passive or accepting of violence, hate, or social marginalisation. Michelle Obama later clarified her quip to note, “For me, going high is not losing the urgency or the passion or the rage, especially when you are justified in it. Going high means finding the purpose in your rage.”
My purpose, like most restorative advocates and practitioners, is a big tent one. And things don’t seem to be going this way at the moment. So, what do we do? Well, for my part I look to the past for reminders that such struggles have been and are successful in pushing that moral arc. I spend less time doom-scrolling and lamenting the most recent news, and more time asking what my own little part of agency in history is, and how I can do this – for me its teaching dialectical and critical thinking (and research if anyone reads my articles). And I remain committed to pushing – always pushing – for dialogue.
The essential role of dialogue is not just exchanging viewpoints. Real dialogue demands on some degree of humanizing the other. Accountability and transparency, respect, and involvement in decision-making are all components of dialogue at interpersonal and also more structural levels. This is why the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire noted, “If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed.” Freire realised that dialogue oriented towards addressing such problems is always potentially radical to the degree that it allows for humanising opportunities. This does not always happen, but in its exclusion it never happens. So it is the same in restorative justice meetings, where it does not always happen, but in conventional court practices it never happens.
It is thus not surprising the growing extremism in politics seeks to shut down such opportunities for dialogue. We are moving into times where dialogue is once again dangerous, even forbidden. Banned books and journalism (and in Australia not just the US), directed attacks on ideas, and governmental approval or denial of funding “dangerous” topics are becoming increasingly normalised. While it is clear these policies are focused largely if not exclusively on socially marginalised people, these are also emblematic of an “othering” of people in general in lieu of possible humanising and (often) difficult and complicated dialogues.
So I choose to get up tomorrow, make a coffee, and remind myself of how many millions of people have and continue to struggle for a larger tent. Then I remind myself that despite the bleakness of the immediate future, I am privileged and fortunate enough to have countless opportunities for such “radical” dialogue, and that the billions of permutations of similar dialogues are an essential component of continuing to bend that moral arc towards justice. Sometimes more is needed for justice to happen – when there is no possibility of dialogue. We may be facing such times, but even then, our focus must remain on using justice that expands the tent in humanising ways, to fight injustice that is opposed to these principles of accountability and transparency, respect and human rights, and increased inclusiveness and participation for all people.
